During my
studies I learned a lot about Governors. (Regulators) Governing is my
specialty. I do also controls for sequencing, process, auxiliaries and
protection, which in my opinion is not so challenging as the governors.

Applications
are all different and the user friendliness is depending on application
engineers who build them. When more engineers work on the same
application, the amount of mistakes and double logic is increasing. The
best applications are made by formerly field Engineers!

There must be
a good co-operation between the Control and the HMI. The HMI is a good
tool to find issues in the control logic. A modbus address can guide me
to the correct place in the logic without studying the whole program.

The field
engineering work on site is mainly correcting mistakes, improvements
and add additional logic. I have been on sites though were I had to
build a control application and the HMI from scratch. If I have
the manuals and the tools, I can do it!

I have made
logic with Relays, Pneumatics, PLC’s and DCS systems.

HMI

Some
years
ago
the name MMI (Man Machine Interface) was in common use. That
was changed to HMI (Human Machine Interface) when the females of our
species were also using it. Scada (Supervisory Control And Data
Acquisition) is an advanced HMI or combination of HMI’s. Storage
of data, statistical process control and many other things can be done
with the big amount of Scada software available.

In my
opinion the name DCS (Distributed Control System) is not always used
correctly. Main control rooms have often a combination of HMI’s and
Scada systems, which are hooked up to all the processes. If the control
systems are distributed, then we can say DCS. The abbreviation DCS
finds its origin at IBM, and meant Digital Control System in the early
days.

If you move the letters
IBM one position to the left in the alphabet, then you get HAL.

Who wants to control the process with a HAL9000 computer?

I have been
working with several Scada systems. The UNIX based systems are a lot
more reliable then Scada software running on a Microsoft operating
system. Setting up a Scada system has became a lot easier trough the
years. From the Scada systems running under Microsoft I say: If you
know one, you know them all.

For
building screens on a TDC3000, I still need the manuals, which I received during
training.

I have some bad
experiences with smart transmitters! For example instruments with
ranges of 0 to 10 Bara are used for measuring atmospheric pressure. I
think that smart transmitters have caused a lot of damage to
installations since they were introduced. Every technician with a Hart
communicator can change ranges, Offsets and Gains so easily. The
control does not now anything about it because it is only looking at a
4 to 20mA signal. This is why I prefer standard instruments for
specific ranges instead of the smart bastards. Adjusting ranges can
always be done on the control. I prefer to do the calibration on the
instrument itself, but if it is not possible I will do it in the
control.

Being a Physics Engineer did
not mean I stopped being an Electrician. 25% of my work has to do with
finding and fixing electrical problems. A very strong point is that I
know my way around in electrical drawings. If necessary I can easily
make loop diagrams from the cabinet wiring, interconnection diagrams
and field wiring. By doing this I will find mistakes without testing on
the installation. This does not go well on drawings with coppast (see
below) though! And of course after everything is connected correctly
and tested, there might still come up ground faults or earth faults.
Finding and fixing ground faults can be time-consuming, but I’m getting
pretty good at this. Because I am a first electrician, I can fix the
installation properly myself.

Fact: A problem on a longtime running
installation has most likely to do with the wiring or electrical
installation!

I now my way around on motor control
centers (MCC) and have been involved on several site modifications.
Very often I find higher voltages from MCC’s coming back into a 24VDC
cabinet (start - stop commands). In my opinion this is not correct and
not save!

Updating drawings by hand is time
consuming. If I have AutoCAD available, I can
update the drawings a lot faster, and leave the final drawings on site!

Turn drawings

into loops

Coppast

On
this web page I would like to introduce a new word. I hope this word
will be an official technical word or term one day. The word is coppast
and comes from copy & paste
error.
A coppast is made when someone behind the computer copies
something and paste it somewhere else without modifying it correctly!
This does not only involve electrical drawings, but all drawings made
by computer.

Examples

Terminal
blocks are copied from an old project, paste in the new project and the
terminal numbers are not correctly adjusted. This will result in wrong
connections in the field.

A
coppast in a P&ID will result in wrong installed instruments
or actuators. Instrument technicians will search forever for something
that does not exist.

A
coppast on interconnection diagrams will result in wrong cabling. Some
cables are to short and need to be replaced. Wires, which are not
right connected, might damage equipment.

A
point-to-point check with drawings that contains a coppast is invalid.

I saw a lot of coppasts since computer drawing
was introduced. This was not happening when drawing were manufactured
by hand or on a drawing table. On a drawing table you would not make
those mistakes. On a drawing table you don't draw a line, but you
connect a wire. It might be a good idea that anyone who wants to work
with computers for making drawings has at least 5 years of
experience on the drawing table.

I would like to collect coppast
examples on this page, so if you have something, contact me!